Whelen Engineering Compnay, Inc.

Whelen Technologies, Inc.

Thomas M Fredericks

Todd J Smith

Kenneth S Lemieux

James L Stopa

An embodiment of an LED warning light includes a plurality of LED banks, each including a series of light emitting diodes. LED failure in one or more banks can result in a warning light that appears to be functional, but may not meet relevant standards for light production. The LED warning light monitors current flow through each LED bank to detect failure of an LED and produce a failure signal. The LED warning light includes a microcontroller programmed to evaluate the failure signals and take one or more pre-determined failure mode actions. Failure detection and failure mode actions are defined by program steps taken by firmware running in the microcontroller.

LED aviation warning light with fault detection

An aircraft position light employs selected colored LEDs to produce a white appearing warning light with a reduced light component in the amplification spectrum of night vision imaging equipment. A combination of amber and cyan LEDs are selected to produce approximately three amber flux units for every cyan flux unit resulting in a white composite light. Both of the selected LEDs have dominant wavelengths of less than 600 nm.

White position taillight for aircraft

An exemplary aircraft anticollision beacon is constructed around a faceted aluminum support cylinder and base. The support cylinder has an outside surface with ten vertically oriented substantially planar faces. An array of LEDs is mounted in thermally conductive relationship on each face of the support cylinder. Each LED is partially surrounded by a trough-shaped reflecting surface that re-directs off axis light into a horizontal plane. Axially aligned, radially adjacent reflecting troughs combine to form the circumferential reflecting troughs. The support cylinder and base are connected in thermally conductive relationship to define a thermal pathway from the LEDs to a heat radiation surface on the base. The base is also configured to act as a heat sink for heat generating components of the LED driver circuits. The exemplary beacon employs a distributed energizing circuit in which each driver is configured to energize two of the ten arrays of LEDs.

LED aircraft anticollision beacon

Base stations in an outdoor warning siren system monitor the system communication radio frequency to detect the command signals used to activate remotely located warning units. A valid command signal includes a portion identifying the base station generating the signal. When a base station detects a signal bearing its identification, the base station compares the detected signal to its own station ID. If the detected signal matches the detecting station's ID then a system breach is declared. The outdoor warning siren system may respond to a breach by automatically de-activating any alarms activated by the unauthorized signal and/or producing a breach indication to emergency personnel who may respond according to the situation.

Method and apparatus for detection of warning system breach

A warning light has multiple juxtapositioned arrays of light emitting diodes, each of the arrays defining a plane oriented transversely to the parallel axes of the lenses of the diodes comprising the array. The arrays are supported so that the planes defined thereby angularly intersect. The radiation pattern of the light is controlled by selection of the diodes comprising each array and adjustment of the angles of intersection of the array defined planes.

Multi-array LED warning lights

A method of and apparatus for providing information which may be used in making traffic management decisions for limited access highways is disclosed. The method and apparatus employs microwave radar to obtain information bearing signals which are processed to determine the vehicle direction and speed. The apparatus includes the capability of emulating in-the-road or on-the-road sensors to provide output pulse pairs which appear as if generated by switch closures. The method and apparatus also has the capability of providing 'wake-up' signals commensurate with a predetermined number of consecutive vehicles which pass a preselected point traveling at an abnormally low speed. Because the method and apparatus are vehicle direction sensitive, the capability of monitoring traffic flow by looking across lanes is also present.

Traffic management system

The direction of motion of objects is sampled to determine, in a manner in which substantially avoids false alarms, whether there is object motion in a direction of interest. Systems employing such sampling methodology generate a warning signal in response to a vehicular traffic condition of interest and include at least a pair of motion detectors. Each motion detector processes motion information bearing signals to determine distance traveled in a predetermined time period to minimize false alarms.

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Westbrook, CT, United States of America

Thomas M Fredericks